


if our frozen selves remember

by carnival_papers



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Ghosts, Hallucinations, Intimacy, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, Spirits, Tenderness, it is in your self interest to find a way to be very tender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 19:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18534262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carnival_papers/pseuds/carnival_papers
Summary: Alone on the tundra, Francis is visited by three ghosts.One evening in the long night of winter, just after Silna had brought him to the camp, Aglooka had sat across from theangakkuq, fire burning low between them, and learned ofangirraqtuq. The word had been unfamiliar to him—someone who comes home, that much made sense, but the way theangakkuqused it was different. He spoke ofinukandtarniqandinuusiq, bodies and souls and lives, how even wheninuusiqended, the soul persisted somewhere beyond here, a brighter world than this one. But things could go wrong, theangakkuqexplained, and sometimesinuusiqended before it should.





	if our frozen selves remember

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Если мы вспомним во льду](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20325943) by [luthiele](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luthiele/pseuds/luthiele)



Long ago, when survival had still seemed like an inevitability, Francis had loved the snow. You had to love it to want to traverse it, to want to nose your way through it in a creaking ship, pressed on all sides by the ice and the men and the danger of that frozen expanse. Even after months, after years, there had still been something wild and invigorating in looking out upon a sea of blinding white. The crisp of it beneath his boot, the blast of polar air in his lungs—all of it, near to him as his own skin, loved as much as you can love that which terrifies you.

Now, among the Netsilik, he is certain he does not love it any longer. He is not sure how he _ever_ was capable of loving it—the ground too hard and cold for anything green, the freeze a thief and a killer. He respects it now, has learned the necessity of giving yourself over to the landscape, but he does not love it. Cannot.

He had been a different person then. Francis Crozier, Captain, an officer of the Royal Navy and an Irishman. An alcoholic, spineless and insecure. The wrecks and the walks had worn that out of him, and though he’d still been afraid, he’d at least hardened himself to the cold, put on a brave face for his men.

They would not recognize him now: four stone lighter, beard thick on his chin, Inuktitut rolling smoothly from his tongue. (He speaks English now only when alone, _kakivak_ in hand, watching for fish: _ice_ , _ship_ , _captain, passage, Terror, shipmates, dead_.) The Netsilik call him Aglooka, _long strider_ , and they taught him how to spear and skin seal, how to fend for himself, how to survive.

The sun dogs are bright and high when he sets out. Ostensibly, he is scouting for caribou, a herd of them somewhere out on the tundra, fat with tender meat, antlers spreading out like branches against the white sky. This ought to be an easy task; he has begun to master the art of solitude, finally, after so many years of failing at it. But as he wanders, his mind drifts, too, thoughts like ice floes carried on currents, too easily swept away.

Everything that happened—the ships, the tinned meat, the Tuunbaq, Hickey—it might as well have been centuries ago. Someone else’s life. He has never been the kind of man to dream, but when he closes his eyes, he sees the men in silvery daguerreotypes. The flavor of seal meat bleeding between his teeth is too similar to the tough sole of Goodsir’s foot, an aftertaste he has never been able to wash out.

And there is the matter of his hand—the hand that held glasses of whiskey, that tilted Sophia’s face toward his own, that massaged poison down James Fitzjames’ throat—gone now. It has not stopped him from flexing phantom fingers, or from thinking of what Blanky might say ( _for Christ’s sake, Francis, one of us has to be whole)_.

He has forgotten the precise timbre of Blanky’s voice. Of Sophia’s, too, and Jopson’s, though the dissonance of Hickey singing the national anthem has inexplicably stuck with him. The terrible sound of the Tuunbaq choking on lead-poisoned sailors. The primitive, inhuman noise of James crying out, too far gone already, the seams of old scars split open, too much blood. Why he has been able to preserve these moments and not the good, he doesn’t understand.

In the distance, the promise of trees. This, he can do. Here he can succeed where he has done nothing but fail. The Netsilik are the only reason he has lived this long; each hide and each cut of meat is the smallest step toward paying his debts. As if he ever could.

He measures his years in sets of numbers: footprints left in the snow, summers spent out on the ice, the births he’s witnessed, the men he’s lost. He used to keep their names close to his heart, would run through the ship’s muster when he couldn’t sleep, but the names have started fading. Those they left at Beechey, the Marines, those boys on _Erebus_ when they’d still hoped for a thaw—only numbers now.

His body bears witness to it all. Beyond the way his arm stops short, he has caught glimpses of his pockmarked and scarred face in the clear water, and there is the ache in his joints, the pain at the base of his spine that sings like a blade hitting bone. And there is the iron-heavy guilt in the pit of his stomach; the yearning for warmth and companionship and home.

Francis is gone now. He adjusts the hood of his parka and inhales. No sign of the deer yet, no shift in the landscape. Maybe as a younger man, he would have cherished these moments alone at the edge of the world, away from cramped ships and the coarse mouths of sailors. But mostly, the solitude just reminds him that to the Netsilik, he will always be _kabloona_ , and no matter where he goes, he will be something other-than, an outsider.

Even if he were back home, whatever or wherever that might be, he would never be able to make them understand. This land is incomprehensible until you’ve made yourself a part of it. He has spilled his blood on this snow, buried friends here. How could he ever return to operas and society life and Sophia after all of this? How could he ever tell them of the death and the despair and, despite everything, the wonder?

No matter. There is no going back. There is only Nunavut and the knowledge that one day, sooner than later, he will die here, as he was always meant to.

Lately, death has seemed like a comfort. Though it is a lie, he supposes, to call it a recent development. In the midst of the mayhem, as he had watched his men fall—men that had been his friends, his sons, his brothers—he had wanted nothing more than to join them. Death had been a kindness for so many of those men. But it is not becoming of a captain to give in.

What haunts him most is James. How quickly he had declined. How he had gone from strong and brash to begging, his hand tight around Francis’, for a reprieve from the pain. Nearly five years after, behanded and broken, he still remembers the fading light in James’ bloodied eyes, the words that had hung on his own lips, too much to burden a dying man.

Thinking of James leads him to think of Blanky, and of Jopson, of Goodsir’s opened wrists and of Little’s face strung with chains. That he allowed this, that he failed them, Francis has never been able to accept. Never been able to forgive himself.

The shame drowns him. That he could not be good enough, that even in this, he was unable to rise above his station. When he lets himself feel the weight of 128 souls on his shoulders, it shatters him all over again.

He is on his knees in the snow before he can stop himself. He was meant to be a leader, after Franklin and the Tuunbaq, supposed to carry all of them forward and get them home. And yet: the blood, the lead, the bodies.

His heart stammers in the barrel of his chest. A part of him wishes, once and for all, that it would stop. The cold seeps through his mittens to his skin—swears he can feel it on the hand that isn’t there. It aches, _everything_ aches, and maybe he would go numb to it if he gave in. Maybe it would all stop hurting.

“Sir?”

A familiar voice, like a shard of glass through his heart. Upward glance to the diamond-blue sky.

“Captain Crozier, sir, let me help you.”

And then he is being pulled up by steady hands, hands he knows—knew, anyway, before he was Aglooka, back in those old days. Kind smile, crystalline eyes, brass buttons on his coat perfectly shined.

“Thomas?” says Francis, voice rising with disbelief.

The dissonance of seeing Jopson before him, whole and well and alive, sets Francis unsteady on his feet. But Jopson still grips his shoulder, laughs a little now, squeezes tight.

“Lieutenant Jopson, sir,” he says. “I’ve recently been promoted.”

In this land of nothing, somehow—his steward. It is as incomprehensible as his own existence.

“God almighty,” Francis mutters. Falls into Jopson’s arms, face in the crook of his neck.

There is a feeling deep in Francis’ gut that this is as false as it is fleeting, that they had left Jopson there in the camp, that he had been at Jopson’s side in those last days, embellishing childhood stories to ease some of the pain. And, yes, if he lets his mind tug at that string, he knows, _knows_ , this will unravel like worn knitting. All of it will fall apart and he will be nothing more than an old, sad man, alone in the snow, half-mad with yearning for what had been before.

Which is why, though he knows he should, he cannot bring himself to question this. He sighs into the warm wool of Jopson’s coat and breathes in. Feels the solid of him, muscle and bone.

One evening in the long night of winter, just after Silna had brought him to the camp, Aglooka had sat across from the _angakkuq_ , fire burning low between them, and learned of _angirraqtuq_. The word had been unfamiliar to him—someone who comes home, that much made sense, but the way the _angakkuq_ used it was different. He spoke of _inuk_ and _tarniq_ and _inuusiq_ , bodies and souls and lives, how even when _inuusiq_ ended, the soul persisted somewhere beyond here, a brighter world than this one. But things could go wrong, the _angakkuq_ explained, and sometimes _inuusiq_ ended before it should.

The _angakkuq_ said they would _angirraq_. Come home. Become _angirraqtuq_.

It was a puzzling concept. Aglooka had wanted to ask if they were ghosts, but the word had escaped him. There had been never before been a need to talk of ghosts and spirits and born-again bodies. His Inuktitut came clumsily. _The body gone?_

The _angakkuq_ had shaken his head. Gestured toward Aglooka. _Angirraqtuq._

Aglooka had pointed to himself. _Angirraqtuq? I come home?_

His next words were hard to understand. Something about death, the end of _inuusiq_ , but not its true end, and that _angakkuit_ could sometimes raise the dead.

Realization had slowly begun to dawn. _Silna angakkuq?_

The _angakkuq_ nodded.

_She make me angirraqtuq?_

The _angakkuq_ had nodded again, and Aglooka had felt the world shift beneath him.

Francis has not yet been able to apply the word to himself; he cannot bring himself to believe that Silna had, somehow, rescued his _tarniq_ from the whatever-lies-after and returned it to his body. If he had died, if Tuunbaq had mauled him along with the others, why would she bother with trying to resurrect him? After all the wrong they’d done her.

In those purgatory days, James’ statement, _I’m not Christ_ , rung through Francis’ head. There had been braver men on their ships than him, men with families and homes and people who loved them, depended on them. If anyone deserved to be raised from the dead, it would have been them.

This is how he makes sense of Jopson: _angirraqtuq_. They had all died before their time, hadn’t they? Each and every _inuusiq_ cut short. So maybe Silna, or some other _angakkuq_ , perhaps they’d had pity on the men, and the scraps of flesh hanging on gnawed bone had only been a trick of his mind.

Francis allows himself a step back to look Jopson crown to toe. He is smiling so widely that his gums show, and there is no blood oozing over his teeth. The beard that had mossed its way across his chin is freshly shaven; he looks every bit the earnest, enthusiastic young man he had in their very first days on the ship.

“You’ll forgive me if I should gawk,” Francis says dumbly. He’s still too stunned to move.

Jopson smiles, reaches out, brushes clumped snow from the fur at Francis’ hood. “Haven’t any idea why you would, sir.”

A lump forms in Francis’ throat. How is it possible that Jopson has conquered even death and still feels compelled to call him _sir_? “I—I thought you gone, Thomas. Like the rest.”

The words seem to pass over and through Jopson, his eyes glimmering blankly in the summer sun. “I’m here, Captain,” Jopson says, “but where are you?”

This is a strange question, one that sets Francis unsteady. The Inuktitut comes to him first. “ _Tuttuliaqtuq_ ,” Francis says, and he raises his wrists to his head, stretching out fingers like antlers toward the sky. He stifles a grave laugh when he realizes what a lopsided caribou he makes.

“I’ve not seen the herds near here. Are you certain you’re where you ought to be?” Jopson turns just so, the light drizzling over his shoulder. He is slight but strong, well-fed, confident. The lieutenant he might have been if things had been different. “The ice has begun to thaw. We’ll need to keep up the pace if we intend to make it back to _Terror_ in time.”

Francis squints. “In time for what, exactly?”

“A ship without its captain makes for hard sailing, sir,” Jopson says. He stretches an arm out toward the horizon. “We could make it in a day or two’s walk, I think. They’ll only wait so long.”

It is an impossibility, of course. Francis knows this. Hadn’t he been the one to order them to abandon the ship in the first place? Hadn’t he felt shame anchor him to his seat as he signed the captain’s log, letters crooked from his trembling hand? And hadn’t he tamped down the fury rising in his chest as they trekked across a barren wasteland, sickness and spirits at their heels, all the while knowing that this fate could have been avoided?

He cannot allow himself to go back there. He is no longer a captain; perhaps he never should have been in the first place. “I am to scout for the caribou and return to the _tupirvik_. That is my job now, one at which I am currently failing.”

Jopson glances back. Extends his hand to Francis now. His face is free from blood or blemish and his voice, though quiet, is clear. “Captain,” he says simply, “please, come.”

There is a veiled desperation in Jopson’s eyes, a tremor in his hand. A calling-out from somewhere, begging, beckoning. Francis feels split apart; what he once knew of death and life and what he has learned from the Netsilik pull him in opposite directions. He saw Jopson’s body before, he is certain, and he knows that he is the only one left. If there were others, they would have been found by now. Francis feels sure of that.

“I’m sorry, Thomas,” he says. “I can’t.”

A twitch of Jopson’s upper lip. A blink, long iced eyelashes against his cheek. Slightest hint of a nod. “If you should change your mind, you need only follow the leads.”

“Sounds like you’ve been listening to Mr. Blanky,” Francis says, a little ache twisting itself in his chest.

“Yes, sir,” says Jopson. “Can I tell the men to expect you soon?”

“I think you’d better not.”

Jopson walks away without a word. Francis watches him disappear into the distance, navy silhouetted against white, and thinks of the long walk away from _Terror_ camp, friends lost, friends left behind. How abandoned they must have felt—had there been another choice? Could they have been saved? The gulls had started to appear just then, the thaw had been so near. If they had better rationed the salt meat, if they had made better time with the sledges—

He will drown in these hypotheticals if he lets himself. And he will spin himself into madness if he tries to understand what he has just experienced. So, collecting himself, he advances toward the sun, due east of where Jopson had gone, and hopes for deer.

There are no hoofprints in the snow, no matter how far he walks. The herds had been plentiful the previous summer; it does not make sense to him that they should just be gone. Hundreds of deer do not just disappear, and he is certain they have not been overhunted.

In the years before, Aglooka had stalked out to the tundra with the _nunaqqatigiit_ , spear in hand. They had found swaths of frozen land crawling with caribou, and Aglooka had watched the more skilled hunters make their kills with expert precision. Hot blood spattered the snow, seeming to bubble on the cold ground. A few quick movements and the deer was broken down, haunches of meat wrapped in its own skin, its detached antlers hidden away inside a parka to be carved into tools. Aglooka had felt useful then, helping to haul the spoils back to the _tupirvik_ , slicing fresh red flesh and letting it melt on his tongue.

That trip had led him past melt ponds and cairns built by _kabloona_. He’d had to stop himself from going to dissemble the rocks, hoping for some sign that perhaps his men still lived. But he has seen no cairns and no ponds, only the sastrugi like great snowdrifts upon the sea ice. No sign of the lichens and little sprouts of green that hearken one’s arrival on the tundra.

He has no compass with him, only the sun and his feet and his mind, which he has begun to believe is failing. Still, he should know this land, the particular cracks that open when the weather warms, the places where the ice will calve and break into bits.

But when he looks out before him, really looks—the landscape is a language he cannot read. Nothing to see but ice and ice and ice. And he is in the center of it all, a familiar hunger beginning to sprout in his stomach. It is a wonder, he supposes, that he has survived this long. A man in his right mind would have carried food with him, or would have scavenged something to eat by now.

He thinks of men slicing into the leather of their boots. Into the bodies of other men. How readily the men had, at Hickey’s camp, devoured one another in some kind of cruel communion. Worse, he knows he must count himself among them. Wouldn’t it have been better to die? In dying, at least, he might have done some good.

An imprint of something in the snow. For a moment, his heart thrills. If he listens closely, he is certain he can hear far-off hoofbeats. Then, the realization, rising like nausea in his throat—the shape of his own boot, his own footsteps stretching out into the distance, their paths twisting over one another, labyrinthine. It is enough to draw an animal sound from the back of his throat, one he is immediately ashamed of making but cannot bring himself to stop.

He is lost. After the ordeal of the expedition and almost dying and becoming, maybe, _angirraqtuq_ , he is lost. There will be no search parties this time. The Netsilik live their way, and, try as he might, he has only ever been ancillary to their existence. And the _angakkuq_ had told Ross what Aglooka had said, sent those crews home with nothing and no one.

 _Fitting_ , he thinks to himself, the taste of it going sour in his mouth. This land had once seemed traversable; he had thought, maybe, that they could own it, or own the knowledge of it. It had all seemed like some great adventure. Even when things turned hellish, there had been moments of light: the carefully nurtured sapling of his friendship with James, the frigid walks spent reminiscing with Blanky.

Blanky. His oldest, truest friend. With Blanky, things were uncomplicated, straightforward, the simplest solution almost always the best one. If anyone were ever truly at home on the ice, it was Blanky, with his pipe and foul mouth and fearlessness. Francis has known him— _knew_ _him_ , he corrects—for more than half his life. Their lives. And Francis has nothing to show for it now but the hurt of missing him, a pain locked deep in the chambers of his heart.

Francis allows himself a moment to think of Blanky. He’d be calm in this situation. Any situation, really. He’d take stock of what he knows—that the _tupirvik_ is somewhere far-off and there’s no certainty as to which direction it might be, because his footprints carry him in aimless circles over and over.

“I’d say you’re well and truly fucked, Francis.”

A blink, and there is Blanky, his legs splayed out before him, packing tobacco into his pipe. “Smoke?” he says, eyes wild.

“Bleeding hell—” Francis starts, but is cut off by Blanky laughing, cackling, really, which only makes Francis more indignant. “Is this some kind of a joke?!”

The sound of Blanky’s laughter fills up the whole world, a sound so big and so bright that Francis cannot help but get lost in it. He had thought he’d never get to witness this again—the lines of his friend’s face, how he laughs with his entire body.

“You absolute arse,” Francis says, lowering himself to the ground next to Blanky. His muscles ache, hard knots deep in the tissue from overexertion and from worry. Blanky passes him the pipe and Francis accepts, holds the warmth and the taste of the tobacco in his mouth. It’s good, spicy, and being here shoulder-to-shoulder with Blanky makes him think of home.

For a long while, they do nothing but this, passing the pipe back and forth in silence, pleased enough with just the company of each other. The tobacco soothes the spinning of Francis’ brain, the unstoppable wheels turning and turning to try and make sense of Blanky’s presence. He had thought these days were a distant memory, but here they are, the soft sound of Blanky’s breath a balm for his uncertainty.

When the leaves in the pipe are burnt to crisp ash, Blanky takes the pipe and cleans it methodically. Francis summons his courage and speaks the terrible truth: “I’m lost, Thomas. I’ve no idea where I am.”

Blanky sniffs. “The middle of bloody nowhere, looks like.”

“Not helpful.”

“I’m more interested in why you’d come out here alone in the first place,” Blanky says, slipping the pipe into an inner pocket of his coat. “As many expeditions you and I’ve been on, you ought to know by now that solitude is death.”

“ _Tuttuliaqtuq_ ,” Francis says. “Scouting more than hunting.”

“Your accent’s still terrible as ever,” Blanky says. Francis shoves him over into the snow and Blanky is laughing anew, and Francis can’t help himself but to laugh along with him, the first time he’s truly laughed in years, maybe, so hard it brings tears to his eyes. How much he’s missed this, longed for it despite himself. This real friendship, forged on the decks of ships and frozen wastelands, unbroken.

“I thought you’d died,” Francis says when he’s finally caught his breath. “Wrapping you up in forks and rope and sending you off for that beast. I thought for sure it’d made a meal of you.”

Blanky sits up, spreads his arms wide. “Do I look like a dead man to you, Francis?”

And, well, no, he doesn’t. He looks hardy, healthy, happy. Francis wants to ask about his leg, if he’d ended up seeing the Tuunbaq, what had happened to make him end up here, too. But rather than risk ruining this, Francis merely shakes his head and forces a smile.

“You, on the other hand,” Blanky says, “I’ve seen corpses looked better. Smelled better, too.”

“Like a thousand-year-old armpit,” Francis says, and the memory of that day knifes through him. Blanky doesn’t acknowledge the old words—that in itself makes Francis hurt a little more. But, he supposes, it’s a miracle that Blanky is here at all.

Blanky is looking out toward the horizon, eyes squinted against the sun, the familiar expression of quiet confidence on his face. “There’s a ship full of men waiting for their captain out there. James and I can only do so much, but you—they trust you. As do I.”

A lump rises in Francis’ throat. “I can’t, Thomas. I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

Francis gestures to himself. “Aglooka,” he says, “ _Inuit_.”

“You know as well as I do that furs and an igloo don’t make you an Eskie.” Blanky doesn’t look at him. “You come with me, we get to the ship, we’re home for tea in a blink.”

 _Angirraq_. Come home. He’s not sure if home is Ireland or England or _Terror_ or here. If it’s anywhere at all. But when he thinks of being among his men, something like peace starts to settle around him. He thinks of open water and clear skies and full sails. The chatter of seamen above and below, the crash of waves against wood. Perhaps Jopson mending a button on his sleeve, or James going on and on for the thousandth time about that Chinese sniper.

It would be nice. But it would be false, certainly. And wouldn’t realizing that all over again make it hurt even more?

But there’s Blanky. Francis does love him. When he has been certain of nothing else in his life, he has been certain of the love between them. Not the kind of thing you speak of, but the kind of thing you feel, communicated in shared drinks and dirty jokes and the confidence that someone is there, standing on your side.

“Listen,” Blanky says, a sudden sternness to his tone. “It’s not my place to tell you what to do with your time. But there’s no caribou here. Not enough to make it worth your suffering.”

“I’m not suffering,” Francis mutters.

“You never have been a good liar.”

The words hit Francis in the gut. He hasn’t even been able to admit to himself how he’s been hurting, how, these days, getting up and living feels like a burden. Most days, he barely feels hunger, though he knows he should eat. It feels wrong, somehow, to survive on scavenged bits and pieces of seal when so many of his men had gone out starving for a sliver of skin. Maybe he could have done more. _Should_ have done more. But short of laying himself out and letting them feast, what else was there he could do?

Blanky finally looks over at him, eyes dark but kind. “You’re missed. We’re all a bit lost without you.”

Francis forces himself to his feet, his joints stinging as he moves. “I need to be getting back home.”

“And where exactly is that, Francis?”

“I don’t know!” Desperation edges into Francis’ voice; the sound seems to travel for ages over the flat, empty terrain. “Christ, I don’t know. You know about the bloody deer; tell me where the hell my camp is.”

He immediately regrets his hostility. But it doesn’t seem to faze Blanky, who, Francis reminds himself, has seen him in much worse states. Blanky stands without hesitation, no sign of the awkward fumbling that accompanied the wooden leg. He stands like a younger man, like he had in Antarctica, years before.

“That way,” Blanky says, gesturing out somewhere southish of where they stand. “You’d better get a move on if you intend to beat the storm.”

Francis swallows. Steps back. “Right,” he says. His tongue feels thick in his mouth. “Thank you.”

Silence. Blanky nods. Francis wants to pull him into his arms like they had on that last day. He’s not sure, now, if Blanky would embrace him, or if he’d just stand rigid, distant.

Francis decides it’s best to do nothing. And so he moves on, inclining his head to Blanky as he passes, but otherwise saying nothing, acknowledging nothing, hoping for the sound of voices and the warmth of a fire.

A sound from just behind him. Blanky’s voice. “You’ll find me if you change your mind.”

But when Francis turns back, there’s only the ice.

Francis tamps down the uneasiness that rises like bile in his throat. How is it that Blanky could be there, and then, just as suddenly, be gone? He shakes away the worry, the fear that maybe his mind is going, the feeling that, in a mere second, he’s spoiled years of friendship.

He makes himself move. Follows the long line of Blanky’s outstretched arm, pointed finger. Out here, the ice rolls like dunes, stretches out into eternity like a terrible frozen desert. He hauls his body up and over hills, aching, wanting something he can’t name.

Lately he finds himself thinking of _Terror_ when he can think of nothing else. Strange, how those times had been a hell that he now regards with a sort of fondness. It had been good to have purpose in life, and comradery, the assurance that, if he fell, there would be a hundred men scrambling to help him stand. Now he depends upon nothing but himself and the occasional kindness of nature, and takes what the Netsilik will give him, expecting little.

Once, soon after they had abandoned the ships, he had spent an evening in his tent with James. It was before James had started to go, really go, though Francis remembers now that even then, there were the sores at his lips and hairline. James had pressed his fingertips to them, and they’d come away bloody. He’d winced. Francis had assured him it would be fine. They would be fine.

James shook his head. _Not for me_ , he’d said. Francis hadn’t quite known then how much James was hurting, how tightly the disease already gripped him. But he could see the quiet resignation in James’ eyes, and Francis had wanted to take him by the shoulders, tell him, _You’ve done so well, James_.

Despite everything, they had done well. All of them. In the midst of the fire and the blood and the lead and the loss, Francis still felt warmth toward all of them. Still does. Even Hickey, even Tozer. They had tried to do something impossible. And for a while, they had succeeded. That was something to be proud of.

He was proud, too, of James. Of himself. The way their antagonism had given way to trust. In those days after he’d stopped drinking, James had been the brave one. He’d faced the men with an ease and confidence that Francis had never been able to replicate. And on those nights, when Francis had been in bed sweating out a lifetime’s demons, James had come to sit at his side in silence. He’d never told James what that meant to him, back when James could hardly stand the sight of him.

In the tent that night, James had admitted that he was afraid to die. James, who was strong and strapping. Who had survived a musket ball to the stomach. It had never seemed possible that a man like James could be afraid of anything. But the tremble in James’ voice meant this was real. So did the tremor in his hands when Francis took them in his own.

He has thought back on that moment more times than he can count. Years later, he still does not know what possessed him to do something so brazen. Francis remembers now that it was the day they had made the long walk to Victory Point, when he’d learned so much that James had hidden. James had poured himself out and expected Francis to abandon him. But Francis wouldn’t. Couldn’t. After that, it only seemed right to touch James when he was hurting, as if the mere touch of his hand could still the uneasiness in James’ heart.

Francis flexes his fingers, thinks of how James’ hands had fit in his own. The way James’ throat had knotted under his fingertips. He cannot think of that, even now, without a stabbing feeling in his chest.

Ahead, there are jagged chunks of ice like little mountains, still solid after years of winter freezes and summer thaws. It takes Francis longer than he would like to climb over them. He is still learning how to manage without a hand; the loss feels new all over again when he reaches for something and remembers he cannot take it.

It takes Francis a moment to catch his breath when he comes to a flat foothold in the ice. In thick pieces like this, the ice is pure blue—the same shade as Jopson’s eyes. He thinks again of Jopson’s kind face, his quick wit, and immediately regrets it. All this talk of ships and captains, as if they weren’t crushed to bits years ago.

And yet Francis wishes, despite himself, that he’d taken Blanky and Jopson’s offers. Perhaps it would be certain death, following a ghost or a _tuurngaq_ into the unknown, but would that really be worse than his life? Maybe he would be with friends again. Maybe he would have purpose.

At last, he levers himself over the top of the outcropping. The bones in his legs feel like shattered glass. They have for a long time. He cannot remember the last time he wasn’t in some sort of pain. Francis stops to rub the knots in his legs and the hurt sears deep in the muscle. He gasps, presses it so the pain flares again. He sinks into it, familiar as an old friend.

As he is massaging the sore spots in his thighs and calves, Francis notices a silhouette in the valley before him. A corona of sunlight radiates out from it, making the figure look like something otherworldly. Francis is struck with unease and wonder. And, if he allows himself, a little hope.

Francis lowers himself down the front face of the frozen rock and approaches the figure with hesitation. He wants for a spear, something with which to defend himself. Since Tuunbaq, he takes no more chances with this kind of thing.

He blinks as the figure comes into focus, certain it must be a trick of the light.

James.

The sight is almost enough to make his body buckle. There, brilliant before him, is James Fitzjames, looking as he had when they first set off for the Passage. Rosy pink colors his cheeks, and his hair is swept back beneath his cap, curling slightly in the wind. The buttons on his coat gleam gold in the sunlight. There is no fear of illness in the strong sway of his back or the devilish quirk of his upper lip.

Francis stands stock-still, a few paces away from James. A part of him worries that if he moves too quickly, touches too thoughtlessly, James will disappear on the breeze like so much snow. His throat goes tight, lips dry. There’s so much he wants to say that he can’t bring himself to say any of it. What could he say to a dead man he’s dreamed alive every night for five years? What words could capture the tangled feelings in his head and heart?

It is James who makes the first move. He steps purposefully toward Francis in measured strides. Francis does not allow himself to blink, to breathe, to make even the slightest motion. He just watches, taking in this sight which he had thought for certain to be lost.

“Francis,” James says. Privately, Francis thrills at this, hearing his name said in James’ brandy-smooth voice. He hazards a look at James’ hands and suppresses the sudden, overwhelming desire to take them in his own—in the hand he has left, anyway, perhaps with James’ fingers against the spot where his other hand had used to be. At once, all he can see is James, _James_ , his face constructed of soft lines and curves, the sorts of details he never noticed before, back when he had time to notice them.

James is close and Francis can hear him breathing. No struggle for breath now. No pain in it. That on its own makes Francis want to crumble. More than anything, though, he desperately wants to touch James, to feel the real of him, to know this isn’t a hallucination or a dream or an _angirraqtuq_. The Arctic has played too many tricks on him.

“Francis,” James says again. Where there had previously been the hint of a smirk, James’ expression has gone solemn and still. There is a look in his eyes that Francis does not recognize. And, despite himself, Francis cannot make himself move, cannot make his tongue form even so much as James’ name. Something like shame blooms inside Francis. His face goes hot.

When James reaches out toward him, Francis notices the minute quiver in James’ hand. His fingertips are unsteady in the space between them. Francis focuses on the pale moons of James’ round fingernails, impeccably clean, and the strands of threads unraveling from his dark gloves. He focuses on anything but James’ eyes, because he knows that if he meets them, he will break, the same way he had after James had finally gone, knowing Bridgens was just outside and could hear him, unable to stifle the feral sounds that came from him as he held James’ shirt, hands, face.

Then—worn wool on his jaw, fingertips just under his ear. James’ hand held soft against his cheek, inside the thick fur of the hood of his parka. James’ thumb moves slowly and deliberately over Francis’ cheekbone. The motion is so small and so gentle that Francis can hardly believe _he_ is the one experiencing it. He bites the inside of his bottom lip and dares to glance up at James. It feels like stepping off a cliff.

The expression on James’ face is one Francis has rarely seen: perfect contentment. He thinks, now, of how he had watched Sophia on evenings at the opera, when she would circulate the room charming everyone in sight. Francis was happy to watch from the corner, drink in hand, knowing she might meet his eye as she passed between admirals and distant cousins of the royal family.

He thinks, too, of how he had felt the first time he stepped onto a ship. Or the first time he ever really felt at home on a ship. When he finally had his sea legs under him and could appreciate the briny scent of the ocean, the burn of salt air in his lungs. When he’d known, somehow, that he was meant to be a man of the water, and how it had felt to slip into that role, _sailor_ , as if it were a well-tailored, oft-worn suit.

Contentment. It is a feeling he has not known in years. And yet, here at the center of a land that has tried and tried and tried to kill him, he feels it in the touch of James Fitzjames’ hand.

For a moment, Francis closes his eyes and allows himself to feel. The last person to have touched him like this must have been Silna, when she was busy raising him from the dead, helping him _angirraq_. Even so, that was different—he hardly remembers those days, spent in and out of consciousness, starving and sad. No, James’ touch is something different entirely. Francis feels the slight callous of James’ index finger against the soft skin behind his ear. Strange, how something so unremarkable is made new in James’ hands. Strange how this makes him feel, suddenly, like life might be worth living, that he might have some purpose, if only to touch and be touched.

It is not as if he has never been touched before. There was Sophia, and others before her, but—James is a man who has seen the worst of him and stayed. And James, handsome and charismatic, the perfect picture of a naval officer, had made himself vulnerable before Francis. Had allowed Francis to be the one to put him back together. Francis has never given much thought to this until now, but it does feel right.

Francis’ tongue is dry and heavy in his mouth when he finally summons the strength to speak. “You’re alive,” he says, his lips moving against the heel of James’ hand. A fleeting memory of that last day, the terrible and indescribable experience of watching James wither away before him.

“I’m here,” James says.

Impossible as it is, Francis accepts it. If he himself is still alive after all the hells he’s been through, then maybe James has survived, too. Francis nods, and his beard rubs rough against James’ hand. A gentle pressure, the slightest squeeze, and James brings his hand back to rest in the pocket of his coat.

Momentary stillness, savored. Then, James: “Come with me.”

And Francis follows.

For some time they walk in silence, nothing but the crunch of snow and rock and ice underfoot. The quiet is, for once, not a torment. It is comfortable, wrapping around them almost blanketlike. As they walk, their hands brush against one another. Francis might once have drawn back from the contact, but he does not now. Every pinpoint touch is a reminder of what they had been before, what they might still be: friends, or brothers, or companions.

None of those words seems quite enough. Then again, Francis supposes, some things are better off unnamed. Putting a name to something tames it, makes it known. If the Passage is ever found, marked, mapped, this land will cease to be the wild thing it is, merely another place in someone’s atlas. He prefers to live in the in-between, the spaces noted with question marks and tentative lines. To call James merely his friend seems reductive. Maybe they, too, are something uncharted, unknown to all but them. Maybe this is something new and beautiful and, for now, wholly theirs.

James says, “I had thought I might never see you again.”

They are crossing a flat plain which looks the same in every direction. The lack of distinguishing features is sometimes dizzying, but with James, Francis feels somehow steadier. Internally, he chides himself—he’s the one with the polar experience, not James. But James is a beacon of confidence. When Francis hesitates, James insists, _this way_ , and Francis goes.

James says, “You’re practically an Eskie now.”

“I only respond to Aglooka these days,” Francis says. (Doesn’t say, _Francis only feels right when you say it._ )

James chuckles. Looks to Francis with mirth in his eyes, his face crinkling with a smile. He says, “Are they good to you?”

“They’ve kept me alive, haven’t they?” Francis says. “They were always good to us. They have been—kind beyond measure.”

“Good,” James says. “You seem well.”

That—Francis does not know how to respond to. He can’t very well say, _I haven’t been well for years now_ , and he can’t bring himself to crush the hopeful look on James’ face. So, instead, he stops in his tracks and holds up his wrist wrapped with seal skin and furs.

James’ eyes widen. He places his fingers at the place where Francis’ wrist stops, and he presses there several times, as if expecting a hand to materialize in his grasp. “Good lord,” James murmurs, “Francis, what have you done?”

“That is perhaps a story better saved for an empty evening,” Francis says. There’s a tremble in his voice as James strokes his fingers over the rough fur, tracing the surface of the ghastly wound.

“Well,” James says. He pauses. Keeps drawing slow circles on the stump. “I’m glad you’ve finally more stories to add to your repertoire.”

Francis laughs, but he is immovably focused on the path of James’ fingers. Francis himself has done all he can to ignore his missing hand; he only interacts with the stump when wrapping it for warmth. He has effectively separated it from himself, as though from the elbow down were someone else’s arm, and the missing hand someone else’s problem.

But James touches it without the slightest hesitation. Were it warmer, perhaps he would even slip off the mitten-like covering and put his fingers to the actual marred skin, feel the ridges and bumps in the scar tissue. Francis has not even let himself acknowledge the loss, the place where the lack begins. He has felt shame for it, for subjecting Silna to the gruesome deed. The thought has, apparently, not even crossed James’ mind.

What would it be like to have this, to feel this, all the time? Francis cannot fathom it. Sophia had always been just out of reach, just the slightest bit guarded, in a way that made the distance between them seem impenetrable. If there is distance between he and James, maybe it is a distance they can close together.

“I’ll be honest, James,” Francis starts, drawing his wrist back, “I hardly know what to do with myself, having you here.”

And James grins, claps Francis on the shoulder fraternally. “You needn’t do anything. We’re merely walking.”

Francis knows he ought to ask where they’re headed, if James has a destination in mind at all. But does it really matter? Any hunger, fear, worry he’d felt before has dissipated. It’s enough to just be here, experiencing something that feels like normalcy.

So they walk, and James chatters on about China and the particular green-grey color of the sky and how he dreamt, once and still, of meeting the woman who was his mother, finally able to ask her why. It still stuns Francis that James shares his thoughts so eagerly, when for so long he had been a sealed tomb. But Francis does not question it, happy just to hear the sound of James’ voice in something other than a memory.

They walk for a long, long while. With the sun seemingly stuck in its place in the sky, the days out here start to feel like they themselves have begun to crystallize. In truth, Francis is glad for it—if time itself is meaningless, it means that this moment doesn’t have to pass. He can live in this space between seconds, between worlds, where there are no questions and no concerns and nothing but the snow beneath his boots and James next to him. Everything in its right place.

As they walk, they eventually come upon a valley pocketed with holes cut into the uneven surface of the sea ice. A flicker of recognition.

“I know this place,” Francis says. The landscapes out here often seem familiar, but Francis is sure he has been here before. Hadn’t he watched one of the Netsilik elders cut those holes in the ice? And hadn’t one of the younger boys, Tamusi perhaps, helped that old man string nets between those holes? They’d talked excitedly about how, in the spring, the nets would be filled with _iqaluk_. They would have more than enough to eat. “We fish here.”

“Yes,” James says, “I suppose you do.”

His tone is puzzling. Francis stops, squints. Then, the sinking feeling of realization. James’ eyes have gone glassy. The desperate desire to fix whatever has broken suddenly clutches Francis. “James,” he says, at once a question and a prayer. “What’s happened?”

James squeezes his eyes shut tight, dark lashes in chiaroscuro against his pale skin. “What can I say to convince you to come back?”

It is a question Francis has not considered. Has not considered what ‘coming back’ would entail, even. He knows that, somewhere in the ice, _Terror_ and _Erebus_ still stand. If they have not been crushed, perhaps he could still wait for a thaw, and with James and Blanky and Jopson—it would be difficult, certainly, but maybe they would be able to make it back. Alive, against all odds, laughing in the face of death. If Silna could make him _angirraqtuq_ , then maybe she did the same for them. All of them, Goodsir and Little and Hartnell and all the others who had seemed closer even than blood in those last days.

He knows it is a ludicrous idea. And if he takes the time to puzzle this out, it will fall apart, won’t it? He will be nothing but an old man babbling to himself, wishing that things could have been different.

But—ah. It is appealing. To be out on the water again, James as his second, the world open to them, ripe and sweet as spring strawberries. He can think of nothing better.

That life, though. It could only ever be a dream. And with the Netsilik, he might be a burden, but he still lives. His place with them is secured, a portion of fish or seal set aside for him, a tent warm with blankets to sleep under.

“You’ve put me in a rather unenviable position,” Francis says. It hurts there in the bottom of his stomach, how much he wishes this were real. “I want to go with you, I do, but surely you understand—”

Then James’ hands are on Francis’ shoulders and it does feel real. Real as the pain when he watched James die. “A crew is nothing without its captain, and I cannot be your second if you are not there.” A crack in James’ voice that fissures into a rasping, clenching sound. He says, “Please. Please. We are lost without you.”

James’ fingers are tightening around Francis’ shoulders, over the thick layers of skins, and his face is a plea that Francis cannot ignore. “James,” Francis says, the only word he can manage.

Suddenly, violently, James thrusts his finger to the north of them. “On the other side of that hill are your people. If they are good to you, as you’ve said, then you may live out your life with them and you may feel something like satisfaction in it, on the days you do not spend constructing _what-if_ s. But there is a world beyond this, Francis, where you will know not just comfort, but peace. The seas are open and the sailing is smooth. I know you have dreamt of it. The world is abundant, if you only make the choice to see it.”

It is too much to hear. Francis twists himself out from under James’ grip. The feeling of James’ grasp lingers as if Francis were scalded by it. He turns away, too afraid to look James in the eye, to see the disappointment pull him apart. The snow under his feet is soft and turns to slush when he walks through it, up the slight slope, away from James.

There, just beyond: the tents, the Netsilik, the only home he knows now. James has led him here. The scent of burning whale oil floats on the breeze. The children are playing not too far from him. If he goes, he will be welcomed, and he will speak to no one of what has happened in these past few precious hours.

But if he lets himself look back—

James. Still. His hand outstretched and open, waiting.

Aglooka studies the camp. They were here before him; they will be here long after he is gone. He summons his strength, his breath. To Silna, to Tuunbaq, to the _angakkuq_ , to someone, Aglooka says only, “ _Tavvauvutit_. _Nakurmiik_.”

Goodbye. Thank you.

In the valley, James stands, a lodestar. And Francis Crozier, Captain, former officer of the Royal Navy, Irishman,  _angirraqtuq_ —he follows, and follows, and thinks of home.

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all errors in Inuktut are mine and mine alone. I primarily used [this Inuktut glossary](https://tusaalanga.ca/glossary) to help with the language. I know I probably made a million mistakes, so if anyone fluent in Inuktut is reading: I'm sorry!
> 
> [Listening to Our Past](http://www.traditional-knowledge.ca/english/default.php) provided a wealth of resources on Inuit culture and religion; I especially relied on [this volume on Inuit cosmology and shamanism](http://www.traditional-knowledge.ca/english/pdf/Cosmology-And-Shamanism-E.pdf). 
> 
> I read Heather Davis-Fisch's book [_Loss and Cultural Remains in Performance: The Ghosts of the Franklin Expedition_](https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780230340329) while writing this fic, which no doubt influenced some of the storytelling. The chapter "Aglooka's Ghost" in particular was helpful in considering Francis' interaction with and integration into Inuit society.
> 
> Other resources I used included [Virtual Museum of Canada](http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/edu/ViewLoitCollection.do;jsessionid=AAEBC930BBC9C58AE2F01061B0F47120?method=preview&lang=EN&id=10187), [Travel Nunavut](https://www.nunavuttourism.com/), [The Franklin Mystery: Life and Death in the Arctic](https://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/franklin/home/homeIntro_en.htm), and good old Wikipedia.
> 
> Title lifted from Jessica Nelson North's stunning poem ["Arctic Voyage"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=59&issue=5&page=18), which I recommend reading in full to satisfy your Fitzier needs.
> 
> Big ups to Olivia and Rex for encouragement and betaing, as well as my fool partner for putting up with me talking nonstop about _The Terror_ for the past few weeks. I'm really grateful for this show for inspiring me to write for the first time in several years, and for reinvigorating my passion for research and academics. 
> 
> I'm on Tumblr at [birdshitisland](https://birdshitisland.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


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